If you’ve ever written a cover letter for a job application, you know it’s true: the hardest stories to tell are the ones about ourselves.

Put another way, when you're staring at a tree all day, it's hard to appreciate the whole forest.

We’re too close to the details and the daily ins-and-outs. It’s hard to step back and see the overarching themes or the high points that are really worth telling. And it’s harder still to know how those stories are received.

This can be doubly so in business. You’ve worked hard to create something outside of yourself that is at once deeply a part of who you are. At some point, you’ve probably referred to your business or your offering as your “baby.” And what parent can step back from their own flesh and blood and make an unbiased judgement, or an overview description of their own child? You are enamored by every minuscule detail of that baby – but also mired in the constant worrying, decision-making, and downright exhaustion that comes with parenthood.

As a business owner, you are parent to your endeavor. As a result, you have dirty diapers that no one needs to know about, sleepless nights that others could learn from, and plenty of delightful anecdotes that could charm a stranger. It’s just a matter of figuring out which is which.

Business stories are also hard because to do it well you have to shape-shift, to inhabit another. You have to become your customer. You must gain enough perspective to view your business simultaneously as a catalogued list of benefits and an inspiring story of overcoming obstacles. You have to find a voice that's both true to your business and appealing to your customer.

But once you find the sweet spot, you’ll see that sales come easier, word of mouth is louder, and that you and your business can work in harmony, together.